Mbour, Senegal, July 14 (AFP/APP): The rumour spread through Mbour like an Atlantic wave unfurling on a beach.
Two boats laden with migrants that had left on the dangerous crossing to Spain’s Canary Islands 1,500 kilometres (950 miles) away had gone missing.
But the grim tale failed to deter desperate Senegalese men thirsting for a new life in Europe.
“Spain… We all want to go there. If a boat leaves, I’ll jump right in,” said Abdou, in his twenties.
Sitting in a beachside shelter made of sheet metal, an oasis of calm in this thrumming port city 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Dakar, his friends agreed.
“Whether you live here or die here, it’s all the same,” said one. “There’s no work here, no money. The only solution is Spain.”
The crossing to the Canaries is among the most perilous of all the routes that West African migrants take in their bid to reach the El Dorado of Europe.
The “Atlantic route” usually entails days of sailing across treacherous currents in large motorised open canoes known as pirogues.
The wooden vessels are often ancient and unseaworthy, overladen and lacking in water and other essentials.
Crossing attempts surged in late 2019 after Niger clamped down on migration across the Sahara while Europe stepped up patrols on its southern coast, crimping the trans-Mediterranean route.
According to the Spanish authorities, 7,213 people arriving on 150 boats landed in the Canaries in the first half of this year, compared to 8,853 during the same period in 2022.
A Spanish watchdog NGO, Caminando Fronteras, last week estimated that 951 migrants — five per day, on average — died trying to reach Spain in the first half of 2023.
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